Obama And Clintons To Speak At Cummings Funeral

The Baltimore Sun reports:

Two former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, will speak Friday at the funeral service in Baltimore of Elijah Cummings, the Baltimore congressman, committee chairman and civil rights advocate who died a week ago.

Also among those speaking, according to Cummings’ aides, will be Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former president’s wife and the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee; U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; and former NAACP leader and Maryland congressman Kweisi Mfume. All are Democrats.

Obama, the 44th president, will attend the service and “at the request of Mrs. Rockeymoore-Cummings, he will deliver remarks about the remarkable life and legacy of one of this country’s finest public servants,” said Obama spokeswoman Katie Hill.

Elijah Cummings will become the first African American lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol, an honor bestowed to only a few dozen statesmen, presidents and military leaders throughout U.S. history https://t.co/6Q6DqZw5SW

— POLITICO (@politico) October 24, 2019

Cumming’s casket will lie in state about 75 feet away from a statute of civil rights icon Rosa Parks & just steps away from the bust of the former Confederate president Jefferson Davis — a reminder of Washington’s troubled history on race relations. https://t.co/ebKjcRPCMA

— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) October 24, 2019